


all eternity love the dead.

by sootforbrains



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Sleepy Bois Inc
Genre: Character Turned Into a Ghost, Dream Team SMP Spoilers, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:54:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28131999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sootforbrains/pseuds/sootforbrains
Summary: L'Manberg was a nation that never stopped its taking.Phil gripped the edge of the counter with a sigh, attempting to steady himself. It was a harder thing to do, these days."I'm not afraid of him," he said, slowly. He didn't dare look at Techno, didn't dare face his son's expression of pure disappointment. Which was strange, because Phil was the one used to handing out those kind of expressions. Perhaps this guilt was larger than he originally thought it would be.What was he even to feel guilty for?Maybe I am afraid of going to see him.-----In which Phil deals with the pesky ghosts of his three sons, in the wake of a faulty retirement.
Relationships: Dave | Technoblade & Phil Watson, Dave | Technoblade & TommyInnit & Wilbur Soot & Phil Watson, Dave | Technoblade & Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Comments: 6
Kudos: 200





	all eternity love the dead.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, there will be no gore or detailing of how each of these characters died. Also, no shipping! Nothing that will cross any creator boundaries. Do keep in mind, however, that there will be slight mentions of death, although no descriptions and nothing too gory. This is an angst fic, though! Have fun with the family dynamic :)

"You should probably go check on him."

Phil turned slightly away from the window, letting his eyes adjust to the growing dimness outside. The sun was sinking serenely over the horizon, dusting the snow with a golden tint. The tundra seemed to reflect Phil's growing unease back upon him, dousing him with its eerie, mirror-like essence. 

It was beautiful out here, but painfully desolate. Moments like these, Phil was reminded of that fact. 

He opened the furnace, tugged off his gloves, and sighed as the warmth from within floated outward and enveloped his numb fingers. He slid his boots off carefully, tapping the snow off of the heels as gently as he could.

He could feel Techno's disapproving gaze upon him. He'd always hated when people tracked snow into his home. 

"You hungry tonight?" Phil tossed his eldest son a playful gaze, a smirk that was full of something unfairly funny. Because of course Techno wasn't hungry. 

Techno ignored him, ever the stoic. He was poised as he always was, his frame leaning against the wall in a way that was just as dignified as it was lazy. He was eyeing Phil with that no-nonsense expression of his, his braid messy over one shoulder. It had been awhile since he'd let Phil touch his hair, and looking at that braid now, Phil longed to comb his son's hair loose and tie it back again. 

But of course, Techno's hair would probably never style the same way again. 

"Why are you afraid of him?" Techno's brow didn't furrow; in fact, his expression remained eerily the same.

Phil eyed him for a moment, before shutting the furnace and shrugging off his winter coat--an icy blue, matching the tundra beyond--and tossing it over a crafting table. He let his eyes fall on the windows again, as the last rays of sunlight glittered along the purples of the sky. 

"Phil."

"Hm?" Phil turned. Techno was still looking at him. It was unnerving, really; or, it would've been unnerving, if Phil hadn't gotten used to that gaze long ago. It had been an expression often tossed at him in those early days of childhood, whenever Techno had received a consequence he didn't quite like. Consequences, with Techno--with all of the, really--were more often than not brought upon themselves. 

In other words, Phil was practically immune to the intense way his eldest son liked to fixate his gazes. 

After a moment of silence, however, Phil was the one to speak. "I'm not afraid of him," he said, and turned back to the kitchen area, where he lit another furnace and prepared to make some food for himself--because unlike Techno, Phil was ravished. 

"It sure seems like you are." In an instant, Techno was sitting at the table, regarding Phil with that same, intently stoic expression. Phil ignored him, only continued to bustle around the kitchen, grabbing ingredients from cabinets that were not previously his and placing them upon the counter before him. "You haven't been to the nether since--"

"I have no need to go to the nether." But even as he said this, Phil knew that Techno knew it wasn't true. They were running low on blaze powder, and dangerously so; cutting it close with potions was not in Phil's best interest. All of them knew that, really, but Techno especially. Because it had been Techno's suggestion to make amends with Tubbo, for Phil to ally himself with New L'Manberg as a sole supplier of defense. It had been Techno's voice in Phil's ear during all those hours of mining, all those hours of gathering resources for a nation he'd been exiled from, a nation that had failed every aspect of his being as completely as a disastrous explosion. 

A nation that had stolen first his dignity, and then his family. 

And he pitied Tubbo. He really did. 

Besides, Phil had plenty of netherite. But they would need more. They would always need more. 

L'Manberg was a nation that never stopped its taking. 

Phil gripped the edge of the counter with a sigh, attempting to steady himself. It was a harder thing to do, these days.

"I'm not afraid of him," he said, slowly. He didn't dare look at Techno, didn't dare face his son's expression of pure disappointment. Which was strange, because Phil was the one used to handing those expressions to his sons. Perhaps this guilt was larger than he originally thought it would be. 

_What was he even to feel guilty for?_

"He's not a scary dude," Techno said, and Phil was relieved to hear a bit of that old cynicism in his tone. "I mean, he lived under my house for, like, a day before I caught him."

Phil chuckled. He shoved his dish into the furnace and slammed it shut, then turned, waiting for it to cook. That guilt was beginning to grow, larger than it usually did. It began to fill the entirety of his chest like some respiratory disease, some plague he seemed to catch by waiting around like the useless father he'd seemed to become. 

He looked at Techno. "Do you think he....remembers?"

Techno looked carefully back, but said nothing. He didn't have to. 

"Oh my, that smells really good!"

To Phil's right, a hand shot out of thin air and grasped one of the potatoes he'd left out on the counter, then clutching it to a chest that was not quite there. Phil felt himself smile. "Hello, Wil."

And as if summoned by the mention of his name, Ghostbur appeared, a wide smile splitting his lips. "Hi, Phil! What are you cooking?"

"I'm just making potatoes." Phil shot Techno a wink; Techno returned it with a small grin. Little unsaid jokes, indeed. 

"Hm." Wilbur let himself frown thoughtfully, then lifted the raw potato to his mouth and dug his teeth into the skin. Phil filnched; Techno let out a curt "bruh." Wilbur's nose crinkled, but he chewed his bite off like a champ and swallowed it. Sadly, he glanced down at the potato. "I'm sure this would've tasted really nice if I wasn't so....dead."

"I....don't know about that, mate." Phil plucked the potato from Wil's hand and tossed it into the cauldron. "I think you've forgotten that you're not really supposed to eat them raw."

"Oh. You're not?" Wilbur seemed disheartened; he moved to the table to sit across from Techno. When they were next to each other, it was easy to see the resemblance that pinned them as twins; their noses held the same shape, their eyes that same shade of deepened brown. Of course, Techno's hair would remain pink forever, so it seemed--Phil wasn't sure if his muddy roots would ever grow out again--but Phil could clearly recall a time (it didn't seem quite so long ago now, but it was eternities away) where the two had been practically identical, two boys with equal resolve to take on the world and grasp it tight. Phil remembered thinking that he wasn't sure what he was going to do with them when they got older. 

_Now I know, I guess._

Phil bent to retrieve his potatoes from the furnace, and set them on the counter to cool. 

"Oh, Phil! You'll never guess what I did today." Wil's tone was shot through with that painfully familiar excitement, and it caused Phil to straighten quickly, turn to face his middle son with an enthusiasm he could only feel when faced with that childlike innocence (although, of course, that enthusiasm was mixed with a sadness that was unbearable to actually feel, unexplainable to a point of no return, and so he simply focused on that happiness instead). 

"What'd you do?" Phil waved a hand over his cooling food. Techno eyed it hungrily. 

Wilbur beamed. "I went to go see Tommy."

Phil's enthusiasm faltered, then shattered completely. He felt his heart clench itself against his ribs, felt it shudder with that horrible, tangible guilt. He felt himself freeze. 

Somehow, he manged to say, "How is he doing?"

"Oh, I don't know. Well, I think." At this, Ghostbur's tone seemed to falter, an uncertainty blossoming over his words like a terrible vine. "He's....well. He can't speak, not anymore. And he's not very good company anymore." Wil frowned; Phil swallowed the rising lump in his throat. "He won't let go of the compass I gave him. Follows it around like he can actually....like he can actually leave." At this, Wil attempted a lighthearted chuckle. But there were some things not even Ghostbur could make light of. 

"Oh." And it was all Phil could say. He turned back to his cooling potatoes, his appetite suddenly gone. He could feel Techno's eyes on him again, their accusatory nature watching him closely. Phil knew what his eldest son was thinking without even having to look. 

"I think he misses you." At this, Wil perked up again. "We can go visit him together, all three of us!" 

Such was the way of Ghostbur, Phil thought sourly. Never feeling what needed to be felt. A sick part of him envied that. 

It would've made things so much easier. 

"Phil." 

This was Techno, his eyes still plastered to his father with a gentle firmness. Phil could hear the pity in his tone--which was unusual for Techno. He glanced over, saw Wil looking between them with a wide-eyed sort of confusion. 

"Do you not want to go and visit him?" Wilbur's brow furrowed. 

Phil shook his head, roughly, and moved quickly away from the counter, out of the kitchen down one of the pre-built hallways toward his bedroom--it had once been Techno's bedroom, but now it was his, just as this entire cottage was his. This tundra. All of it was his, now, thanks to Dream and his prison. 

He bustled into his bedroom and shut the door, though he knew it would do no good. Letting himself breathe in and out (just as he used to tell Wilbur as a teenager, back when he would coax him through his stage fright when going on to perform at the local talent show), he sat down on his bed, and did what he told himself he wouldn't ever do again: think. 

To his surprise, neither of the twins knocked on his door, or showed up in his room unsolicited--not even Wil, which was something he was prone to doing. Phil was grateful.

He wasn't afraid of Tommy. No. That would be ridiculous. Tommy was his son, his youngest son, and he was still just a kid. Just barely old enough to make decisions for himself. He'd been tugged into a war far too early for his own good--and for that, Phil still wasn't sure he forgived Wilbur, not just yet--but he was still a teenager. Still naive. Still too young to endure any of what this life had so torturously thrown at him.

And Phil was too old. He could feel it in his bones. He could feel his exhaustion gnawing away at his bones whenever he walked. It was the weight of knowing what Dream had done to his family, the weight of knowing that things could've been avoided if only his family hadn't had so much pride on their shoulders. 

It was the weight of knowing that each of his sons could've lived long and prosperous lives if not for the situations they'd clawed their ways into. 

But some things couldn't be changed. 

He wasn't afraid of Tommy. 

_He wasn't afraid of Tommy._

"You're afraid of seeing him." 

This was Ghostbur, of course it was Ghostbur, suddenly sitting upon the desk in the corner of the bedroom. He regarded Phil with that furrowed brow, the infuriatingly innocent expression he often used when talking to people he often found painful. Wilbur didn't like pain, no more than anyone did. The trick was, he didn't have to endure it like Phil. 

Wilbur didn't have to relive the feeling of being stabbed by his own father every day, but Phil had to relive the feeling of plunging a sword into the chest of his own son. 

"I'm not," sighed Phil, and he scrubbed his hands into the sockets of his eyes, wishing just once that his middle son would leave him alone. 

"But you're afraid of what you'll feel." Phil heard Wil shift upon the desk, which was strange, because really, there was no fabric to rustle, no skin to make noise upon the wood. "You're afraid that if you go, it'll scar you for good. You're taking refuge in your ignorance."

Now, these were some big words from Ghostbur. Phil looked up slowly; Wilbur's expression was a rare one of sadness, that usual serenity replaced with something like sorrow. Pity, even. Phil almost chuckled at the thought of Wilbur pitying _him._

"I know a thing or two about ignorance." At this, Wilbur smiled dryly. 

Phil let himself sigh, shakily. He could feel it rising in his chest, this urge to grab his coat again and rush to Techno's nether portal, to enter upon that fresh hell and find his youngest on the other side, forever trapped, forever aching. 

Forever hurt by the world around him.

And what a world it was. 

He looked to Wil. "Will you come with me?"

Wilbur shrugged, and suddenly, that smile was back, the one that beamed light and innocence and everything that Wilbur himself was not. "Of course." His blank white eyes crinkled at the edges, and he leapt off of the desk, reminding Phil of simpler times, when Wilbur would slide himself off of the kitchen counter when Phil agreed to drive him to Schlatt's house for the night. 

Phil wondered if he would ever stop seeing the younger versions of his sons.


End file.
